


the shame was on the other side

by basketofnovas (slashmarks)



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Always a Different Sex, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Banter, Established Relationship, F/M, Sexism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-26
Updated: 2020-08-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:40:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26039590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slashmarks/pseuds/basketofnovas
Summary: Denebola Malfoy gets back to school with her parents' plans too close to ignore.
Relationships: F!Draco Malfoy/M!Hermione Granger, Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 21
Kudos: 42
Collections: Rule 63 Exchange 2020





	the shame was on the other side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kitsunerei88](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitsunerei88/gifts).



> I hope my recipient enjoys this fic! I tried to combine your prompts for F!Draco alone with some of your other likes for the ship and in general.
> 
> Notes on the canon divergence relating to Draco's gender at the end.
> 
> Denebola is another star name; Helden, I picked because it's another obscure old-fashioned H name which is also a David Bowie reference. The title is from the song in question, Heroes/Helden.

At the beginning of sixth year, Denebola Malfoy tried out for the Slytherin Quidditch team for the fourth time. She single handedly slaughtered all Seeker competition for the third time (discounting second year when she'd been a midget with a merely respectable performance, and Potter had had his sole, disastrous term on the team before quitting in a blazing row with Flint) and for the fourth time was dismissed summarily and immediately. 

Montague, like Flint, didn't like girls on his team. This wasn't news by now; Denebola was only making a point by trying out at all.

Afterward, Denebola stowed her broom in the dungeons and went for her customary angry walk around the lake. About halfway through she was joined by her boyfriend.

"Montague is a sexist prig," said Helden Granger, Gryffindor Prefect.

"As if that was _news_ , Granger," said Denebola, sneeringly, to the bulrush at the edge of the lake on this side. "Montague is not merely a prig. Montague ought to be chopped up and fed to the giant squid, as he isn't suitable quality for potions ingredients. Montague is costing us the Quidditch cup, _again_ \--"

Helden cut off this monologue by deftly inserting a cream puff from the kitchen into Denebola's mouth at the right moment. She was delayed by the need to chew, and reduced to glaring up at him with flashing eyes.

"If you want someone to punch his lights out I'm your man," Helden said, making Denebola nearly choke to death laughing, although perhaps this was unwarranted. Helden had been known to get into the occasional muggle style brawl, something people inevitably forgot in the wake of his test scores and faintly prissy air. "But we have this conversation every year, don't we? And come on, they're your favorites."

Swallowing, Denebola said, "That doesn't mean you can _smother_ me with them. But alright, I'll stop going on about Montague. How was your summer?"

"Good," Helden said. "We went to France again; you were right, Cafe Julie is wonderful on the magical side." He paused and eyed Denebola in the tactful, sensitive way that often made Denebola want to slap him. "How was yours? Any news?" he said with a determinedly nonjudgmental air.

"Nine O.W.L.s," Denebola said, and licked a bit of cream off her own nose, a trick she had practiced in the mirror. Teasing Helden made up, a bit, for being cut off ranting about Montague. "All Outstandings. And you?"

"Ten O.W.L.s, one E, all others O," said Helden, who had been taking up the top rank in their class since first year. On the bright side, he was pants on a broom; but unfortunately Denebola could not gloat about this because he didn't care in the slightest. "Any _personal_ news?"

"Mother's moved into another wing of the house from Father," Denebola offered. Helden huffed. "Taurus is taking Care of Magical Creatures this year and they're absolutely appalled his teacher is a half giant?" she said, then relented; "The arrangement's made," she said, and swiped the picnic basket from her inattentive boyfriend. "These are wasted on you," she added, taking the remaining two cream puffs.

"Who is it?" asked Helden, barely noticing the theft, which took all the fun out of it.

Denebola sighed. She turned to stare across the lake, teasing mood gone. "Cormac McLaggen," she said unenthusiastically. "It might have been worse."

It might have been easier if it was worse. She had had five full years of classes to determine that Theodore Nott, or worse, Vincent Crabbe, would be unbearable. She would have felt no guilt at all eloping mid-ceremony on the back of a rampaging hippogriff if it was the most convenient exit from a marriage with one of them. (Or even if it wasn't. What witness _wouldn't_ get mileage out of that story at the pub for the rest of life?) Cormac McLaggen was a year up, Gryffindor, insufferably arrogant, but as far as Denebola knew he didn't make a habit of cursing mice to watch them suffer or anything and his parents hadn't been Death Eaters. 

"He's in my house, isn't he?" Helden said, frowning. "He's sort of a prick."

"He told me about his hunting trips with his uncle Tiberius for two hours straight at dinner," Denebola said. "I couldn't get a word in. It was positively impressive, you know, mere mortals can't usually stop _me_ talking."

Helden snorted, _hard_ , as though he had any room to throw stones.

"If I marry him I'll lose my voice from disuse," Denebola went on meanderingly. She pushed off the railing idly and started to walk again. "It would be a tragedy to humankind, the destruction of a wonder like that. I'd never enlighten anyone with my glorious wit again."

"Glorious wit, is it?" Helden said. "Your husband shouldn't give you a ring, he should get you a golden muzzle."

"Shut up," Denebola said, shoving his hip. "--No, I mean it." She turned her back on him for several moments.

"Sorry," Helden said awkwardly, probably about when he realized she was really upset. "You know I'm joking."

"I know, it's just not funny," Denebola said, but allowed him to pull her over against his side to demonstrate her magnanimous forgiveness. "I doubt McLaggen's the type to think it up, but he could, if he wanted. Not literally muzzle me, but there are spells that'll stop a woman talking unless her husband speaks to her first."

"I didn't," Helden said, "And that is perfectly horrifying." He stopped them and pulled Denebola into his arms; she nuzzled her head into his shoulder. Helden's fingers rubbed gently at her scalp. He wasn't good with brooms, or much of anything else athletic, but Helden had clever hands. For hitting people, for rubbing their scalps and necks and shoulders, for writing, for sex.

"What are you going to do?" Helden asked at last, when Denebola had been quiet long enough and started to melt into his chest.

This was the real reason Denebola was dating Helden. The original furtive snogging had mostly been a matter of intellectual anger and a desire to pick his brains for any prospective cheating tips (there were none, unless you counted not having any hobbies) but Denebola had discovered a number of other personal qualities that made it hard to dump him immediately as planned. The foremost was those questions, 'What do you want?' and 'What will you do?' 

They were questions no one before had ever asked Denebola Malfoy, not about anything significant. ("What will Miss Malfoy be having today?" did not count.) Denebola had found that the act of asking opened up a space in her brain between her father's lectures about duty and honor and her mother's remonstrations about endurance and obedience. Helden did not so much offer Denebola respect for her choices as a quiet confidence that obviously she would make them herself; and like conjuration, by imagining it Helden made it so.

"Well," Denebola said slowly, inhaling the cottony smell of Helden's robes. "Obviously I can't go through with it. I mean, this time last year he was in the hospital wing because he ate doxy eggs on a bet."

A tension went out of Helden so subtly she never would have noticed if she hadn't been pressed into his chest. "Obviously," he said.

"I'd lose it and cast a Blood Boiling Curse at the dinner table in a month," Denebola said. "It would be terrible for both our families, and I'd go to Azkaban besides. Imagine the scandal."

"Absolutely ruinous," Helden said solemnly, although Denebola had a feeling he was trying not to laugh. His fingers rubbed gently at the base of her skull, and she tried not to rub into them like Helden's monstrous cat, as she had _some_ dignity. 

"But they won't let me just say that," Denebola said. Mother probably would have, left to her own devices, but she never was; this, as they were all reminded endlessly, was _Father's_ house. 

"Probably not," Helden agreed.

"So." Denebola took a deep breath. "The only thing is to elope, I suppose. I'd better write to Aunt Andromeda and ask how she did it. And if she or Cousin Sirius will help." The words felt odd on her tongue; she'd never said them together before, either combination. But bringing it up herself gave her some power over that history, a means of taking it in hand. Soon, everyone else would be comparing Denebola to the two of them, too. "And incidentally if you buy me a muzzle I _will_ murder you at the altar."

"I would never imagine it going otherwise," Helden said, and tipped her head up to kiss her. "Or want it to."

**Author's Note:**

> Female!Draco didn't start talking to an unknown boy about how she was going to extort her father to buy her a racing broom, so Harry didn't get a specific and negative impression of Slytherin before his Sorting. Consequently he and Ron weren't in the right place at the right time for Sirius to find Scabbers in front of them, and things played out differently at the end of third year, too.


End file.
